Altsounds - Grateful Dead Keyboardist Dies

Grateful Dead keyboard player Vince Welnick has died in a suspected suicide, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department in California.

The Mercury News, which covers the local area, reported that Lt. Bruce Rochester would not say how Welnick took his life, and an autopsy is expected to take place on Monday or Tuesday.

The newspaper reports that Welnick was taken injured from his home to a local hospital, where he later died, according to sheriff's officials.

Welnick, who was 55, joined the Grateful Dead in 1990 and played with the band until 1995 when the cult band's founder Jerry Garcia died and the group retired from performing.

A statement on Welnick's website read: "Vince passed from this earth on 2 June 2006, after a decade of battling tragedy while creating beauty and light around him."

Welnick is the fourth Grateful Dead keyboard player to have died. Ron McKernan died in 1973 of liver failure. Keith Godchaux passed away after a car accident in 1980 and Brent Mydland died following a drug overdose in 1990.

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